Mon Aug 21 12:40:48 EAT 2017

Government resumes normal issuance of passports

By Monitor Reporter

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has resumed normal operations in the issuance of passports.

In June, government was hit by a shortage and reserved the remaining passport booklets for patients travelling abroad for treatment, government officials and students with foreign scholarships.

According to a Monday press statement, the backlog that was caused by low stock will be cleared within the next two weeks.

“For those submitting passport applications during this time as we manage the backlog, we would like to inform you that our turnaround will be slightly affected during the next two weeks,” the statement says.

“It will take ten working days to process passports through normal application, will express passports will take two working days, after which operations will normalize.”

The statement adds that proven emergency passport applications will continue to be given the urgent attention they deserve.

There are three types of passports; ordinary, diplomatic and official.

Ordinary passports are issued to ordinary citizens, while the diplomatic passports are for diplomats while official passports are issued to government officials.

The diplomatic and official passports were not affected by the shortage.